AFRICOM Gets Seriously . . . Nasty

In 2007, I wrote the first definitive piece for Esquire on the kernel code for Africom: namely, the Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa. Back then, I described it as essentially a non-kinetic force, or no "trigger pullers." But the piece led off with a quick summary of a special ops event that occurred in conjunction with Ethiopia's military intervention in Somalia. So when the deputy commander of CJTF-HOA said that the command had "never fired a shot in anger," he was being truthful in a bureaucratic sense. Back then, HOA didn't kill bad guys on the Horn, SOCCENT [Special Operations Command, Central Command] killed bad guys on the Horn.

When the piece was published, it met up with a bit of an uproar, especially my prediction that - down the road - the US would be sprinkling more such small bases throughout Africa as the one I visited on the coast of Kenya. That mini-base (boots in the few dozen) almost exclusively worked the soft-power stuff, until the call came down and it became a short-term launching pad for SOF operations in southern Kenya (my lead in the piece).

Well, WAPO comes out today with a piece saying that's exactly what's happening, with a big focus on drone operations.

What's sad here: AFRICOM was supposed to be different - the whole "3D" approach of diplomacy, development and defense, and in first few years it was. Now, word from everyone familiar with the command is this: AFRICOM's focus is all kinetics and kills, with the soft stuff going by the wayside. Obama has become addicted to drone strikes like Clinton was with cruise missiles.